Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Collegiate Millennials' Perceptions Of Locally Produced Beef, Shelby Oesterreicher, Lisa K. Lundy, Joy N. Rumble, Ricky W. Telg

Journal of Applied Communications

Millennial consumers are stepping into important roles as decision makers and consumers. A knowledge and communication gap exists between cattle producers and consumers this knowledge seeking generation. This study focused on collegiate millennials’ perceptions of locally produced beef. The research design was qualitative in nature using focus groups. Participants associated the beef industry and beef products with the environment, management practices, treatment of animals, human health concerns, retail, experience with the beef industry, experience with beef, and transparency. Results of this study showed participants had minimal knowledge of the industry and relatively negative perceptions of the industry and beef products. …

A Sentiment And Content Analysis Of Twitter Content Regarding The Use Of Antibiotics In Livestock, Garrett M. Steede, Courtney Meyers, Nan Li, Erica Irlbeck, Sherice Gearhart

Journal of Applied Communications

On January 1, 2017, the final rule of the Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD) was put into place requiring antibiotics approved for both humans and animals to be discontinued for growth promotion. This change was brought on by the role growth promoters in livestock production play in the development of antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance increases the costs associated with human health care by increasing the length of stays in the hospital and requiring more intensive medical care for patients. The purpose of this study was to explore sentiment and characteristics of social media content and the characteristics of the key influencers …

Genetic Modification, Factory Farms, And Alf: A Focus Group Study Of The Netflix Original Film Okja, Garrett M. Steede, Kelsi Opat, Leah S. Curren, Erica Irlbeck

Journal of Applied Communications

Okja is a fictional Netflix original film that was released in 2017. Okja features a “super pig” that is owned by the large, agricultural company Mirando Corporation. Okja is raised by a young girl, Mija, and her grandfather in the South Korean mountains. The film climaxes when Mija and the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) narrowly save Okja and a smuggled piglet from the slaughter process. The purpose of this study was to understand how college students responded to the film. The viewers of this film included students who were majoring in a field within the agricultural college (COA) at Texas …

Multi-Tactic Ecological Weed Management In A Changing Climate, Sonja K. Birthisel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Climate change is expected to impact weed communities in Maine, and the efficacy of tools and tactics farmers use to manage them. Through seedbank sampling and surveys of Maine organic farms, we identified currently rare weeds that are known to be especially abundant or problematic in warmer areas of the USA and might therefore represent an emerging agronomic risk. Many ecological weed management strategies that focus on depleting the weed seedbank are expected to remain effective in a changing climate, and become increasingly important as efficacy of cultivation and some herbicide applications diminish or become more variable. Through field experiments, …

Six Key Components Of A Farm Or Ranch Business Plan, Jay Parsons

Cornhusker Economics

Developing a good farm or ranch business plan can have many benefits. In an earlier Cornhusker Economics article, I outlined six good reasons to develop a business plan (Parsons 2015). It helps to get your business organized and moving in the right direction. It lets your lender know you have a plan to succeed, which opens up your access to capital. It also helps you organize your thoughts, clarifying the goals and objectives you wish to achieve. In summary, putting together a written business plan increases the likelihood of your business achieving success (Scarborough 2011).

Jerome Powell Is Not The Bad Guy, Tim L. Meyer

Cornhusker Economics

One of the maxims often heard in economics, agriculture, and politics is that those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it. At first glance, this is a pessimistic view of human behavior. However, I believe that in some part it is a reflection of the positive spirit exhibited by many Americans. While it is true some have not bothered to learn from history, others have simply emphasized the positive times while simultaneously limiting the memory of more challenging experiences.

Societal Rebirth: The Importance Of Spirituality, Lauren Rothstein

English Department: Traveling American Modernism (ENG 366, Fall 2018)

This article offers an exploration of what the social consequences are when modernity strips away religious-human relationships to the land. The two texts Black Elk Speaks and Grapes of Wrath both include moments of anonymous forces imposing systematic modernization on society. Particularly, I try to understand the controversial subject of societal rebirths, traditionally defined through employment and steady food source availability. This paper proposes an approach to societal rebirths that emphasizes the importance of spiritual connection to the land through a critical analysis of Bakhtin's theory of Chronotope and Leopold's theory of Land Ethic. On the issue of spiritual connection …

Ecology And Genomics Of An Important Crop Wild Relative As A Prelude To Agricultural Innovation, Eric J.B. Von Wettberg, Peter L. Chang, Fatma Başdemir, Noelia Carrasquila-Garcia, Lijalem Balcha Korbu, Susan M. Moenga, Gashaw Bedada, Alex Greenlon, Ken S. Moriuchi, Vasantika Singh, Matilde A. Cordeiro, Nina V. Noujdina, Kassaye Negash Dinegde, Syed Gul Abbas Shah Sani, Tsegaye Getahun, Lisa Vance, Emily Bergmann, Donna Lindsay, Bullo Erena Mamo, Emily J. Warschefsky, Emmanuel Dacosta-Calheiros, Edward Marques, Mustafa Abdullah Yilmaz, Ahmet Cakmak, Janna Rose, Andrew Migneault, Christopher P. Krieg, Sevgi Saylak, Hamdi Temel, Maren L. Friesen, Eleanor Siler

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Domesticated species are impacted in unintended ways during domestication and breeding. Changes in the nature and intensity of selection impart genetic drift, reduce diversity, and increase the frequency of deleterious alleles. Such outcomes constrain our ability to expand the cultivation of crops into environments that differ from those under which domestication occurred. We address this need in chickpea, an important pulse legume, by harnessing the diversity of wild crop relatives. We document an extreme domestication-related genetic bottleneck and decipher the genetic history of wild populations. We provide evidence of ancestral adaptations for seed coat color crypsis, estimate the impact of …

Imperfect Produce Pricing: Relationships Between Price Percent Discount And Demographic Traits Of Customers, April Foster

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research sought to understand the impact of price reductions on consumer spending behaviors related to the purchase of imperfect produce. Additionally, the correlation between consumers’ demographics and their willingness to purchase imperfect produce at various price points was evaluated. The data was viewed with mindfulness toward reducing food loss as a function of the world food crisis. More specifically, the purpose of this study was to describe the relationship between Washington County, Arkansas consumers’ demographic traits and the percent discount at which they are willing to alter their behavior to purchase specific imperfect produce items. Using the Theory of …

Assessing Rice Consumers’ Preferences And Willingness To Pay In Haiti, Cleeford Pavilus

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the last 30 years, rice has become the number one food staple in Haiti, and rice imports have outpaced domestic production to supply the country’s increasing rice demand. Policy makers support the claim that increasing local rice supply will not only reduce the dependency on imported rice but also upheave the national economy. However, there is a lack of information on Haitian consumers’ preferences for rice to aid the development of the local rice supply chain. This research aims to bridge that gap by assessing Haitian consumer preferences and willingness to pay for selected rice quality characteristics. The results …

Risk And Return Comparisons Of Pre-Harvest Marketing Strategies, John Leander Turner V

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper analyzes risk and returns associated with pre-harvest corn grain marketing strategies for the state of Arkansas. Farming is characterized by a volatile environment. Numerous risks are taken by producers in order to provide commodities that are bought and sold by various parties in the supply chain. Price, yield, and production costs vary daily and can have large variation between years. Risk and Return Comparisons of Pre-harvest Marketing Strategies examines the effectiveness of using pre-harvest marketing strategies to enhance returns and to mitigate inherent price risk in the Memphis cash corn market. Thirteen strategies are compared to the October …

Consumer Perceptions Of Labeling Claims On Poultry Products, Sarah Townley

Agricultural Education, Communications and Technology Undergraduate Honors Theses

An increasing number of consumers wants more knowledge of how the food they eat is produced, and specifically, how animals used in the production of their food are raised. One method consumers use to become more aware of production practices behind the food they purchase and consume is simply reading food labels. Labeling claims can be defined as textual, pictorial, graphic, or symbolic representation that either explicitly states or implies that a food product has a specific set of properties supported by a certification process. The purpose of this study is to gather data regarding consumer knowledge and understanding of …

Highest And Best Use Determinations In Agricultural Land Assessments, Matthew Elliott, Lisa Elliott, Tong Wang

Matthew Elliott

Do We Need More Futures Contracts In Commodity Markets?, Fabio Mattos

Cornhusker Economics

In the last couple of months, there has been news about a new futures contract for soybeans. The Financial Times and Reuters, among others, reported that the CME Group, the world’s largest futures exchange, is considering launching a futures contract based on Brazilian soybeans. The discussion seems to have started after trade issues between the United States and China resulted in a 25 percentage-point tariff on U.S. soybeans exported to China. As Chinese buyers try to avoid the tariff by purchasing grain from other suppliers, notably Brazil, a new price dynamics between U.S. and Brazilian soybeans could be emerging. This …

Brooks, Larry (Fa 1228), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1228. Student paper titled “Blacksmithing” in which Larry Brooks explores the history of blacksmithing, the proper way to shoe a horse, appropriate tools and supplies, and how craftsmen use various smithing methods to repair items such as shovels, plows, and wagon wheels. Brooks collected information from Earl Austin, a longtime farmer and blacksmith from Beaver Dam, Kentucky. The paper also contains black and white photographs of blacksmithing implements, the shoeing process, and Austin’s workspace.

Agricultural Production From The High Plains Aquifer Is Worth Over $3 Billion Per Year, Richard K. Perrin, Lilyan E. Fulginiti, Federico Garcia

Cornhusker Economics

Recent research (Garcia, Fulginiti and Perrin, 2018) has shown the that the extra agricultural production from irrigation across the High Plains Aquifer (HPA) was worth about $3.5 billion in 2007, $2 billion of which was produced in Nebraska. The aquifer water is valuable!

The Economics Of The Capitalization Rate For Farmland, Jeff Stokes, Jim Jansen

Cornhusker Economics

There are three approaches that real estate appraisers use to value real property, namely, the market or sales comparison approach, the income approach, and the cost approach. The sales comparison approach is the primary way that residential real estate is appraised with the cost approach thrown in for good measure. For income producing properties, which includes commercial real estate as well as farm real estate, all three approaches are frequently used. When there are minimal improvements on farmland, the sales comparison and income approaches often provide competing estimates of value that must be reconciled so that an appraiser can render …

Identification And Characterisation Of Novel Phages Of Pectobacterium And Erwinia, Colin Buttimer

PhDs

Losses in crop yields due to disease need to be reduced to meet increasing global food demands associated with growth in the human population. There is a well-recognised need to develop new environmentally-friendly control strategies to combat bacterial crop diseases. There are several crop diseases for which no effective bactericidal agents are currently available, such as potato blackleg and soft rot disease caused by Pectobacterium atrosepticum and other members of soft rot Enterobacteriaceae (Czajkowski et al., 2011). Furthermore, current control measures involving the use of traditional chemicals or antibiotics are losing their efficacy due to the natural development of bacterial …

Initiative 427: Nebraska Medicaid Expansion, J. David Aiken

Cornhusker Economics

This article summarizes information regarding Initiative 427–the Medicaid expansion question on the November 6, 2018 ballot. It reprints the actual ballot language and the Nebraska Secretary of State’s summary of arguments for and against Initiative 427.

Background. Originally Medicaid covered the elderly, the disabled, children in low-income families, and low-income pregnant women. In 2010 Medicaid coverage was expanded by Congress to include the working poor. In 2012 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) requiring states to expand Medicaid was unconstitutional. This made it a state option whether or not to expand Medicaid. …

Micronutrient Availability In Alternative Foods During Agricultural Catastrophes, David Denkenberger, Joshua M. Pearce

Civil and Architectural Engineering Faculty Research

Several catastrophes could block the sun, including asteroid/comet impact, super volcanic eruption, and nuclear war with the burning of cities (nuclear winter). Previous work has analyzed alternate food supplies (e.g., mushrooms growing on dead trees, bacteria growing on natural gas). This was shown to be technically capable of feeding everyone with macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates, and lipids) and minerals, although economics and politics remain uncertain. The present work analyzes vitamin availability in such alternative food scenarios. The vitamin content of various alternate foods is compared to the US recommended daily allowance (RDA) as well as the average requirement defined by the …

Antonini, Virginia (Fa 1221), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1221. Student paper titled “Moonshining” in which Virginia Antonini details the process of distilling moonshine from harvest to bottling. Antonini describes the equipment used to produce moonshine and includes several stories told by her informant, a man only referred to as “Jim,” about his methods and various run-ins with the law. The author also includes her mother’s wine recipe and additional “home brew” stories.

Farm Programs, Payments And Prospects, Bradley D. Lubben

Cornhusker Economics

The USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) began issuing payments to producers in October for Price Loss Coverage (PLC) and Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) programs for the 2017 crop year. While these farm program payments had provided substantial cash flow to help buffer falling market price and farm income projections in the past three years, the current programs will provide relatively little cash flow for now and for the coming year. Only the ad hoc trade assistance payments and the outlook for new farm programs and decisions in 2019 may provide potential relief from the current outlook.

Ohio River Survey (Fa 656), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 656. Kentucky Folklife Program project titled: “Ohio River Survey,” which includes interviews, tape logs, photographs and other documentation of folklife along the Ohio River in Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky. Interviews may include a description of belief, traditional occupation, practice, craft, or tool, informant’s name, age, birth date, and address.

Applying Interconnected Game Theory To Analyze Transboundary Waters: A Case Study Of The Kura-Araks Basin, Marianna Khachaturyan, Karina Schoengold

Cornhusker Economics

A number of environmental problems are international in nature, including many water management issues. Rivers, for example, do not recognize political boundaries. Therefore, pollution generated in one country can affect neighboring countries, while water extraction in an upstream country can affect water flow and water availability in a downstream country. The situation creates an interdependency among countries, which might lead to disputes over the management of transboundary water. Therefore, coordination among the countries is necessary for effective management of these transboundary resources.

The focus of a recently published study (Khachaturyan and Schoengold, 2018) is the transboundary Kura-Araks Basin (see Figure …

Doing Well By Doing Good In The Fight Against Malnutrition And Hunger, Konstantinos Giannakas, Amalia Yiannaka

Cornhusker Economics

Technological innovation and the conduct of innovating firms are key weapons in the fight against hunger and the pursuit of food security around the world. Agricultural biotechnology seems uniquely equipped, if not destined, to spearhead the effort to combat malnutrition and hunger around the world by conferring significant agronomic benefits to producers and by having the ability to enhance both the resistance of plants to environmental stresses and the quality and nutritional value of food. Research that was recently published by the Center of Agricultural and Food Industrial Organization- Policy Research Group at the University of Nebraska Lincoln analyzes the …

Donerail, Kentucky Grange No. 44 (Sc 3267), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3267. Minute book of Donerail Grange No. 44, Fayette County, Kentucky. Includes rolls of members as of 1 January 1875.

Genau, Charles (Fa1212), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1212. Student paper titled “Winemaking: The Old and New Way” in which Charles Genau details the process of wine production from harvest, to fermentation, bottling, and distribution. Genau compares and contrasts methods of traditional winemaking with contemporary approaches. He also gathered his information from two winemakers of different ages and ethnic backgrounds. The paper contains two illustrations of the winemaking process.

Market Facilitation Program: Impact On Nebraska Corn And Soybean Producers, Anil Giri, Wes Peterson

Cornhusker Economics

In July 2018, President Trump imposed a first round of 25-percent tariffs on Chinese electronics and high-tech equipment including automobiles, computer hard drives, and LEDs. The tariffs were imposed on roughly $34 billion worth of imported goods. In August 2018 additional 25-percent tariffs were imposed on $16 billion worth of Chinese exports to the United States and in September tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese exports to the United States were added. (Bradsher, 2018). The Trump Administration has also imposed automobile, steel and aluminum tariffs on imports from Canada, the European Union and other countries.

In response to the …

Livelihoods Of The People Of Mazumbai: A Collection Of Stories And Portraits, Tanga Region, Tanzania, Joseph Baldus

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Despite rapid urbanization in Tanzania, agriculture remains central to the nation, the economy, and the livelihoods of a large portion of the population. Smallholder farmers account for the vast majority of agricultural production, yet are an extremely vulnerable population due to poverty, single-sourced income, and climate-dependency for both subsistence and cash-crop agriculture (Rapsomanikis, 2015). This report explores these dynamic rural livelihoods through interviews and portrait photographs in a case study on Mazumbai, Tanga region, Tanzania. Semi-structured interviews explore the people’s modes of economic subsistence, domestic lives, education, challenges, and life stories. Excerpts from these interviews combined with portrait photographs create …

Pemban Farmer Agency In Adapting To Climate Change, Rachael Hood

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

As a result of climate change, agricultural societies will be challenged by a variety of altered conditions, including increased severe weather events, saltwater intrusion, pest and disease outbreaks, and higher temperatures. The island of Pemba, in the Zanzibar archipelago, is home to many small-scale agriculturalists. During this study, I interviewed Pemban farmers in the districts of Wete and Micheweni about their awareness of the impacts of climate change and the mitigation strategies that they have implemented. The results from Pemba were compared to relevant academic literature regarding climate change to explore whether disparities exist between models of climate change in …